Abruptly
by nathan-p
Summary: It's been years. The Flock have split up. Everyone works alone. And then Max drops a girl off a bridge... Max/OC. For Rowena DeVandal's July 2008 contest. Warn for profanity, gay, and AU. Fourshot, now complete; sequel forthcoming.
1. Chapter 1

Abruptly, he stopped laughing.

"I thought you were joking."

"You know I never joke, darlin'," I said, and crossed my arms.

"Could -- could you not call me darlin', please?" he said.

"And that's the _only_ problem you have with this situation?"

"No," he said, "no, actually, I have a _lot_ of problems with this situation, but it's easier to deal with the fact that I honestly thought you were joking."

"I _dropped_ a girl off of a _fucking bridge_, hon." I said it slowly, to make sure he'd be able to take in every word that came out of my mouth.

"Do you have to swear?" he said.

"Yes. Because you manage to have gotten _denser_ since I knew you."

He winced.

"Yes, I know you test as a genius IQ, but let's face it, kiddo: you were never the brightest bulb in the shed. Which is why I let you think I liked you. You're so funny when you're in love."

He gaped at me, making a face I normally associate with a fresh-caught fish.

"Yeah. I was playing you," I said, just to make sure he got it. He could, as I'm sure you know, be _spectacularly_ dumb on occasion. But I still loved the kid. He was cute. And he made a _hell_ of a distraction. Or he had, when we were still part of a team.

"You _dropped_ my _girlfriend_ off of a _bridge_," he said, slowly.

I nodded. I'd been done with that conversation two minutes ago. "Yep, sure did."

"My girlfriend. Off a bridge."

"Actually, we were on a date, and I dropped her."

He stared at me, face again dropping into the expression that reminded me so much of fish.

"Really. Pretty girl with gorgeous eyes shows up suddenly, willing to do _anything_ for any of us, and you expected me not to pounce?" I paused, waiting for the inevitable witty retort that I'd come to expect of him. "The _minute_ I saw those green eyes..." I sighed. "Hoo, boy. And she's smart, too -- which is more than I can say for _you_." I leaned in close to him. "You ever get to run your hands through her hair? God."

I shrugged. "She wanted to sit out on top of the bridge. Midnight picnic. You know how artists are. She leaned out over the edge, I tried to catch her, and... I just couldn't catch her." I winked. "Trust me. She probably died instantly. Falling from that high up? Dead by the time she hit the water."

I figured he'd be getting pretty pissed by now, so I saw it coming when he tried to deck me, and I just ducked out of his way. If anything, that would probably make him _more_ pissed.

He leaned back in his chair, forcing himself not to make eye contact with me.

"Fang," I said. Normally I would _never_ have broken character, but he'd been my friend. It had been a long time ago, sure, but... I waved my hand in front of his face. "Fangalator? Fnick?"

The old nickname -- I hadn't called him that in years -- got a rise out of him. "What?" he said. "What do you want?" It was like the old Fang was back -- not the handsome, talkative playboy, but the quiet, mopey teenager. "You killed my girlfriend."

I laughed it off. "Yeah, and?"

He glared at me like I'd just shot a baby. "You dropped my girlfriend off a bridge."

"Hey, at least I didn't pull a Gwen Stacy and make you _pick_ between your girl and a bunch of innocent people."

Again with the sweet-Jesus-you-eat-_babies_ look.

I sighed, breaking character for the second time in under a minute. "Honeybuns, I'm a _supervillain_." I paused. "Well, maybe not so super, but I'm a _villain_. We kind of can't have steady girlfriends. The standard is you get a week, max, before she kicks it. Kitty got, like, six months, which is great for someone who's not a henchperson."

"I thought they were henchmen." He was starting to perk up.

"Henchpeople. Political correctness and all." I shrugged. "Hey. If I were one of the crazy ones, even my henches wouldn't get six months." I clapped him on the back. "Be happy she got that long."

He buried his face in his hands. "My _girlfriend_ was cheating on me with my _sister_, who dropped her off a _bridge_."

"You're a little slow on the uptake, aintcha?" I dropped him a wink. "We're not related by blood, kiddo."

"I _know_ that," he said, voice dropping into the realm of a dangerous growl.

"Did they _really_ turn you into an Eraser," I asked, "or is that just a rumor?"

I was curious. He looked like he wanted to bite my head off.

"It's a rumor," he said.

"I doubt that," I said. "It shows."

I checked my watch; I had ten minutes left with him.

I got up, produced a business card, flicked it at him; he caught it. "Come have some coffee with me sometime," I said. "You'll know where to find me."

I vanished. Or that was what it would look like to him.

I had to find Angel.


	2. Chapter 2

Angel's place was on the edge of the city, conveniently located inside a homey little abandoned warehouse. She didn't even lock the doors, although it was in a weirdly skeevy neighborhood.

Right now I kind of needed some sympathy from the other girl still living within city limits, and I kind of needed to tell her I wasn't with Kitty anymore, and I kind of needed her help.

I spiraled down through the night sky; it was almost morning already. Man.

You're probably asking what the hell is going on. This is what we've been doing:

After They tried to get us to save some fish off of Hawaii, Fang quit, claiming it was demeaning -- which it was. And then the Flock fell apart. Angel and me decided that we could make a living in the city, so we moved there and went into business.

You'd be surprised at how far up the ladder a hench with actual _superpowers_ can get. Superspeed didn't get me jackshit, but flight saved my ass more than once, and helped out a whole bunch when I had to rob people.

Angel wasn't much good at the whole villain deal, so she went for skulking around on the grey side of the law, which worked out well for me when I needed her help, and well for her when I needed someone to bail me out of prison.

I'd actually met Kitty while doing grocery shopping. At the time I was under a guy who called himself Silver Devil, so I was one of the Imps. Yes, we had a group name.

I bumped into her while she was swearing at the self-check machine. It had eaten her "fucking dollar". I spotted her some cash, she offered to help me carry my groceries (for a floaty artist type, she was weirdly nice), and away we went.

We started out meeting every Wednesday for lunch, which eventually escalated to her sharing my room back at the lair.

God, she was beautiful.

Kitty had soulful green eyes, almost-perfect skin (she had acne scars beside her nose, but I didn't mind), and her face looked like God had traced it out of a comic book, with those wide cheekbones and narrow chin. She wasn't as tall as I was, and weighed only a few pounds more than I did. She wore her hair long and undyed, because she liked it in its natural blonde color.

In a word, she was cute.

She ran across Fang while out and about on the streets, and wound up living a double life, toying with him, being way, _way_ in love with me. We both knew she probably didn't have long, but she was basically okay with that.

And now she was dead. I'd known from day one that she was going to wind up dead someday, but it was still a shock.

I hammered on Angel's door, even though I didn't need to. I knew she was standing just on the other side of the door. "Angel," I called, pitching my voice so it would carry through the thick door. "I need to talk to you."

She pulled the door open and shoved a Styrofoam cup of tea into my hands. I sniffed the steam; it was something I couldn't identify. Probably strong.

"I'm so sorry, Max," she said, and I came in from the cold.

She closed the door behind me. It was a dark winter night outside, even though it was getting towards morning. "What are you doing still awake, Ange?" I asked, cupping the tea in my hands.

"Waiting for you." She shrugged and picked up her own cup of tea. "I read minds; I figured you'd show up sooner or later." She looked at me, and for a minute she looked like the little kid I'd raised; innocent, wide-eyed. She'd taken to dark hair and dark eyes for a while a few years back, but now she was back to blonde with blue eyes.

I looked off at the far wall. Angel's place was still pretty familiar to me, despite the fact that I hadn't visited her in years.

Back when I was still Crow.

We Imps used to joke about it; whenever someone decides to make it in villainy, the first thing they do is strike out solo.

They take an ass-whooping from a hero and quickly decide to be someone else's hench. Sure, henches are disposable -- they're like Kleenex to some villains -- but you had job security. Someone like me, who'd managed three and a half years under various villains, was practically a legend in our circles. To get a job, all I had to do was mention the fact that my ex-boss had gotten the shit kicked out of him or been incarcerated _again_, and now I was outta work.

I'd bought a bottle or three of cheap black hairdye and gone to town on my wings and hair. I lasted about a month, which was enough to get comfortable in that identity before I decided to quit.

It was plenty long enough to make me bitter when Fang decided to go vigilante-hero on _his_ hometown and named himself... go on, guess. Crow.

I sipped from my tea, reflecting over the past. I didn't really miss it, and I still had a place with the Imps. I didn't think I was going to be back, though, because now I had a bona fide origin story, like all the big names did. Dead lover didn't pull as many heartstrings as dead parents, but you worked with what you got.

I stayed long enough to finish my tea, sitting silently with Angel, before I decided it was time to go.

So I left.


	3. Chapter 3

It was almost dawn; I settled for winging my way back to the lair, where I knew whichever Imps happened to be home probably wouldn't care if I slumped into bed the minute I got in the door.

I was tired; had I been ordered back out the door, I probably would have stopped to murder someone for coffee.

But no one else was in sight when I got in, so I dragged myself to my bed, curled up, and slept. I didn't dream, but I'd gotten used to that a long time ago.

When I woke up, I wondered for a moment where Kitty had gone. The slant of the light from the window told me that it was sometime after ten o' clock, which meant that I'd been out later than I thought I had. Luckily, a life of crime here is a nocturnal life. If I wanted, I could just roll over and go right back to sleep. And that sounded really, _really_ good right now.

So that was exactly what I did.

I don't wake up like normal people do; I jerk into awareness suddenly. Surprise consciousness!

When I saw the silhouette of someone leaning against my doorframe, I freaked out. Normally when someone watches you sleep -- at least in this town -- it means you're about to get dead. So my reaction was an understandable one.

"Hey," said a familiar voice.

I relaxed. "Oh. Hey, Bree."

"Late night?" she asked, stepping into the room. She and I were fellow hench-wenches, as she cheerily referred to herself; Bree was oddly peppy for someone working under a guy who went out and killed people on a regular basis. Never mind that she was a good ten years older than I was (putting her on the outer edge of the hench-wench age curve), she was my cheerleader. Because she was everyone's cheerleader.

"Oy," I said, putting my head in my hands. "_Tell_ me about it. What did you guys do?"

"Not much," she said, making a noncommittal hand gesture. "I got to kick the shit out of Crow -- dunno what he's doing around here, but he was fucking with our stuff, so we kinda had to. Jen and Jan made a grocery run, and the boss still ain't back."

"You beat up Crow?" I asked, faking interest. None of the Imps knew that I'd been _raised_ with the guy -- before he was Crow. "What was he doing over here?"

"Dunno," she said. "But he was messing around down by the bridge, and I know that's your place, so I felt kinda obligated to beat the crap out of him."

"Thanks," I said. "You know I like to keep my place private."

"When are you gonna set out on your own?" she asked. "You've got, like, a lair ready to go already."

"I was waiting for a backstory to present itself."

She looked at me with a suddenly horrified expression on her face. "Oh, Max, no."

It had been an injoke between me and Kitty; that her death would provide a suitable backstory for me if I ever decided to strike out on my own. Bree had known, and so had the rest of the Imps.

Bree sat down on the bed next to me. "What happened to her, honey?"

I looked away from her. "I, uh, I... we were having a picnic. On the bridge. And she slipped."

She didn't say anything, just sighed. "I'd say either you're dumb or you're finally ready for the big time, but... Max, you _knew_ you were cheating the odds, so why are you getting all weepy over this?"

Because she was Kitty. Because she wasn't someone I'd have met normally. Because if I'd just done the smart thing, she would still be alive.

But if I'd done the smart thing, I'd have had to give up my _job_, the only thing I knew how to do. I'd been in the business since I was ten years old. I just didn't _know_ any other kind of work.

It had been Kitty or my job, and fate -- kismet -- God -- the writer in the sky -- had decided that Kitty was going to be the one to go.

I hated that it had to work out this way.

I would have happily pitched myself into the river after her, if only so I wouldn't have to lose her.

But I knew my place in this world. I was a villain. Kitty was normal. We were fucked anyway, and... well. I could make the best of it.

I know it sounds so callous of me. But I'd known we were doomed as a couple right from the start; I'd told her that so many times. And she'd still, stubbornly, persisted.

I had two choices, then.

I could take the lemons fate had so unkindly pitched at my head and use them to make a lemony-fresh backstory, rise up from the ashes of my past like so many villains before me.

Or I could suck lemons and be miserable until I died.

I got off of the bed. The few things that were important to me had all died with Kitty, and the things I would need were all down at the lair anyway.

"Thanks, Bree," I said.

"Be sure to leave a note," she called after me as I ran, not walked, out the door.


	4. Chapter 4

When I lost her, I knew I had been called to duty.

It wouldn't be easy.

It was going to be very, _very_ hard.

I had to kill Bree. Anyone else who knew who I'd been, except Angel and Fang.

I dyed my hair. Dyed my wings. Changed everything about myself. I wouldn't need a secret identity.

The costume was the hardest part. I settled, as you can see, for simplicity -- black. Durable. Bullet- and knife-resistant. Lightweight.

The name, though, came easily.

I became Dusk.

Would you like to hear a secret?

You're about to die anyway. So it doesn't matter if you know.

Once upon a time, my name was Maximum Ride.

I was supposed to save the world.

I chose to show it what it really was.

Now, enough with the pleasantries.

Let me hear you scream...

* * *

And there it is. Why Max went over to the dark side, with a side of self-insert (yes, I look basically as I describe "Kitty" in the fic).

(By the time I got Opal Roseblossom's review asking what happened to the _rest_ of the flock, I was hip-deep in the third chapter and already working under a word restriction. Had I been able to investigate more into their lives, I would have.

However. Nudge, Gazzy, Iggy, and numerous other Max Ride characters will get their fifteen minutes of fame this November in the sequel, an as-yet-unnamed novella which I'll be writing as part of this year's National Novel Writing Month.

Those familiar with Batman canon will get a kick out of it, I'm sure.)


End file.
